11/7/07

Getting traffic to your blog is always a tough process, however with the right initiatives it's highly possible. It's also possible to do it for free, using the right strategies. Here are 10 ways The Monetizer has found that are great for bringing traffic to your website or blog. Try to put these into practice for your own blog promotional plan and see if you might increase your traffic and subscriber base.

1) Join BlogCatalog.com - As well as MyBlogLog and BlogTopList. However if you were to choose just 1 of these 3, go with BlogCatalog. Submit your blog info on the site and make sure it gets approved and displays on your profile before you start adding friends. You want your blog and RSS feed to be appearing on your profile before you start to get superbusy making friends. Once you're set up, you can add friend after friend on a daily basis, and it will bring people through (other bloggers mostly) to check out your blogs (using simple clicks on their Add Friend button). You can just go click crazy, add a friend then add a friend off their friends and so forth down the line. Aim for 25-100 per day and you will probably notice traffic and RSS subscriptions go up.

2)Add the BlogRush Widget - This really isn't a proven heavy traffic bringer, and you really have to set it up just right. On one hand you want a catchy title always displaying on other blogs, so that people will be curious enough to come over to your blog. But on the other hand, you're displaying a widget and it just might show a title sending people off your blog. It's a catch 22, but done properly it just may help your site. Sign up for BlogRush here.

3) Myspace or Facebook - With both of these you can build a nice looking profile and start finding friends on the sites who may be interested in your topic(s). Monetizer is just starting to tinker with Facebook, and it is really being talked up lately as having a lot of traffic and daily views. It may trump Myspace at some point. But if you can amass a large network of friends on either, you then have the ability to send bulletins to everyone (announce a great new blog post) as well as set up groups, distribute Facebook Flyers (not free) and more. Imagine having a Myspace profile with 1000's of friends, and being able to broadcast a catchy bulletin which many will see, linking to your blog post. Should bring a nice bit of traffic to your blog.

4) Submit to Search Engine Directories - In the previous post the Monetizer reviewed the Directory Submitter software. You can download a free demo copy and submit your site to about 200-300 directories. Some will have specific requirements and if you're doing the free submissions, they may take weeks or months to even list you. Starting now makes sense, as it's a great way to provide backlinks to your site, which is something Google loves.

5) Post on Forums - You want to join relevant forums for your blog topic and if they allow it a cool looking banner type signature for your site will usually attract people. Monetizer believes a lot of web users are visual, so seeing a cool, catchy banner will bring clicks. Become active and post responses on several forum threads and your site should get noticed. You may decide to look for the threads which have a high number of views and responses to post in as your banner will certainly catch more viewers' attention there.6) Join and Submit Content to BLoggingZoom - Monetizer discussed the new site BloggingZoom here. This is a community built for us bloggers and they allow you to submit your own blog entries as much as you want. It's much like Digg as you get "Zooms" on your submitted items that people like. Popular items get displayed on the main page. The folks behind this site also claim they are going to work their butts off to help search engines find the content submitted. A pretty cool deal. There's an article by one blogger who went from relatively few hits on his blog, to over 200 in a day, so it definitely can help.

7) Submit an article to article directories - It's recommended you have 1 really clever or informative "pillar" type article on your blog. Maybe use it as one of your early entries too, such as a key definition list for your topic, or some serious research. You can download a free tool much like the Directory Submitter, yet it's for submitting to article directories. A great way to get your content out there and many of the article directories allow you to place your links for your sites along with the article. The other cool thing here is you can join associatedcontent.com, and submit the article and possibly make a small bit of money if they offer to pay for your material.

8) Comment on related Blogs - You see this a lot, but it's a great idea to leave comments on other blogs within the same topic category or niche as your blog. If the other blog gets a lot of visits, viewers may see your comment and head over to check out your blog. Also, the blog authors will tend to drop by to see who's commenting. This is assuming you are able to link to your blog when you leave a comment. (note: try to stay away from putting your link in the comment body, do it in the title area if possible)

9) Create an E-Book PDF or other item - This one takes the most time and work of the options here. The idea is to create a PDF full of valuable content related to what you blog about, and offer it as a free download on your site. Or create a cool banner graphic or widget such as a flash countdown timer to an event. Make sure you have your URL link to your blog listed in either the PDF or other item you make. If the item is good, word of mouth/buzz can spread like wildfire and get traffic to your blog. Friends will give the e-book PDF to other friends, which features your link. Monetizer recommends if you don't have MS Office, there is OpenOffice.org which is a free type of Office you can download and create PDF's with.

10) Use other social media - Beyond just Facebook and Myspace, sites like Digg.com and StumbleUpon are considered biggies. Also look into Squidoo, reddit, Sphinn, Furl and hi5. But there's a ton more and you shouldn't just stop at having your blog promoted and represented on a few social media sites. The more the merrier!

You may consider this list redundant as many other "How to Blog" blogs and "Moneymaker" blogs discuss several of these. However these above strategies are things the Monetizer has seen traffic come as a result of and believes you can as well. The two best ways so far have been via BlogCatalog and Myspace. Monetizer also realizes there's more than just those two ways and that Search Engine love is what can really help your site do well.